WO 2004/110099 discloses a hearing aid wireless network with a communication protocol that is simple thereby requiring a small amount of code and power consumption during operation. Further, the acquisition time is low, and the latency is low.
The disclosed hearing aid comprises a transceiver for interconnection of the hearing aid with a wireless network for communication with a plurality of other devices, and a communication controller that is adapted for controlling data exchange through the network in accordance with the communication protocol.
In one of the disclosed embodiments, the transceiver and communication controller operate according to a time division multiplex access scheme (TDMA) wherein the time is divided into numbered time slots and different devices in the network communicate, e.g. receive data, in specific respective time slots.
WO 2007/104308 discloses a hearing aid with a communication circuit for wireless reception of signals wherein the hearing aid starts reception of data from the network with a required margin before its time slot, and then it determines the delay until data is actually received i.e. the start of the received data frame is detected, and the delay is recorded. At the next occurrence of the time slot, start of reception is adjusted, i.e. advanced or delayed, in accordance with the value determined during reception in the previous time slot.
Typically, in a hearing instrument, such as a hearing aid, only a limited amount of power is available from the power supply. For example, in a hearing aid, power is typically supplied from a conventional ZnO2 battery.
However, wireless communication circuitry requires significant amounts of power, both during reception and transmission of data.
The present wireless network protocol makes incorporation of such wireless communication circuitry into a hearing instrument with limited power supply capabilities possible.